A clinometer is an old tool used for determining angles in a vertical plane. Various types are available in stores across the country. There are types used to sight objects at a distance, and there are types that can be attached to objects to indicate their inclination to horizontal, such as plumbing pipes during installation. The current invention relates to the type used to sight objects at a distance.
The current state of the art of such devices is that they are basically protractors having visual sights and a plumb-line attached. The user sights the desired object in the distance while another person, a xe2x80x9creaderxe2x80x9d, sees where the plumb-line is in relation to the graduations on the protractor and reads the angle of inclination. This is a functional device that works very well except for two disadvantages; (1) it requires the use of two people, and (2) the device must be held exactly in the desired position by hand, thus requiring a great deal of skill and concentration on the part of the user. A person working alone and wanting to sight a predetermined angle of 45 degrees in a vertical plane to determine the height of an object, such as a tree for instance, would have great difficulty in doing so with such a device.
The current invention offers an improved type of clinometer capable of being set to a predetermined angle of sight before use. The user then holds the device in his/her hand, only one hand required, whereupon the device will automatically seek the predetermined angle and maintain its setting at said angle. This feature of seeking a predetermined angle and holding the setting is not seen on any such instrument in the prior art. Devices of the prior art are designed to allow only for the measurement of angles sighted, not for the ability to sight a predetermined angle as is possible with the current invention. While the sighting of predetermined angles in a vertical plane has been possible for many years with the aid of a complicated and expensive instrument such as an optical transit, the object of the current invention is to provide a very simple and inexpensive device that will allow the user to accomplish the same basic task, though admittedly with less accuracy than is possible with an optical transit.
The current invention is essentially a clinometer which has been improved to allow the user to not only take a sighting and then determine the angle of inclination, but to predetermine a desired angle of inclination to be sighted.
The disclosed embodiment of the current invention is capable of functioning as a self-leveling builder""s level or as a transit capable of orienting itself to a predetermined angle of 45xc2x0 in a vertical plane. One application would be to measure the height of objects using the rule of the right triangle. Due to the force of gravity the device disclosed herein will automatically give the user a visual sighting of the exact predetermined angle in a vertical plane when combined with the use of a plumb-line